


The Way You Did Once

by naasad



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Reincarnation, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Angst with a Happy Ending, Feels, Fluff, Implied/Referenced Alcoholism, M/M, Soulmate-Identifying Marks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-23
Updated: 2018-08-23
Packaged: 2019-07-01 05:33:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,644
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15767622
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/naasad/pseuds/naasad
Summary: Enjolras has been dreaming of Grantaire since he was small. He knowsexactlywho his soulmate is.





	The Way You Did Once

**Author's Note:**

> _"I know you, I walked with you once upon a dream_  
>  _I know you, the gleam in your eyes is so familiar a gleam_  
>  _Yet I know it's true, that visions are seldom all they seem_  
>  _But if I know you, I know what you'll do_  
>  _You'll love me at once, the way you did once upon a dream"_  
>  -Disney's Sleeping Beauty

He was eight years old the first time he saw the Sad Man. He'd been having dreams of candlelight and guns and something that could only be described as family for as long as he could remember, but this was the first time he saw the Sad Man.

He was drinking wine, sequestered in the table at the corner. He looked like he'd been crying. And all Michel could feel was guilt. Did he make the Sad Man cry? He couldn't tell.

From then on, the Sad Man was in every dream. They were always arguing. If they weren't arguing, the Sad Man was crying. Or worse, drinking.

On the day before his thirteenth birthday, he stayed up all night with his two friends, Sébastien and Félicien. The two had gotten their Marks last year, and surprise, surprise, they were each other's Soulmates. (No one was actually surprised, but it was polite to pretend.)

At the stroke of midnight, Michel looked down to see his words were already fully formed, trailing across his collarbone to the point of his shoulder. He frowned as he tried to read it.

Sébastien pushed his glasses up his nose and held Michel still, reading the Mark aloud. "'Fuck, Apollo, fuck, it's really you, fuck, fuck, fuck, why did this have to happen today, fuck!'"

Fey giggled, growing a little louder and more hysterical with every 'fuck'.

"Well," Michel said, slowly. "It's certainly... interesting."

Fey laughed so hard, he snorted. "It's hilarious! My mom can never complain about me having a dirty mouth ever again. How many fucks is that?"

"Six," Bastien said. "Balance, responsibility, and love. And the whole thing is seventeen - a desire for peace and love for all humanity." He folded his hands beneath his chin. "It's better with the swears, actually. Eleven is self-sabotage."

Michel swallowed and looked down at his Mark.

It was the sixth of June, a Sunday, when he, Fey, and Bastien all collapsed in the middle of their parents' church service, screaming in pain. When Michel passed out, he dreamt. This time, he was alone, facing an army of soldiers. Then the Sad Man came running up the stairs. "Permets-tu?" he asked, holding out his hand.

When they all woke up, they knew. Gaps of memory here and there, and the Sad Man still had no name, but all of a sudden, they were both eighteen and two hundred. Young, irresponsible teenagers, and also grown men, defined by tragedy. They didn't speak of it.

Until one day, Fey came up to them in school, fidgeting, and spoke in a dialect long dead. "We should find the others. I don't know if we will, but I know it feels wrong not calling myself Courfeyrac, and it feels wrong not having them here, and this entire second chance or whatever feels wrong."

"I know," Bastien said. He scowled and readjusted his glasses again - the third time in two minutes - then he sighed. "It feels wrong not being Combeferre or Les Amis. Enjolras?"

Michel slammed his locker shut and stalked away. "I just want it to all go away," he said.

Eight years after that, he finally had a somewhat useful flashback and woke up sweating.

"He may not believe in change," dream-Combeferre had said, "but he venerates you, admires you, loves you."

And dream-him had never been able to stop noticing the looks, the blatant adoration, hadn't been able to stop himself from falling just as ardently.

After - after the revolution, that would be the time.

And then the sensation, again, of eight bullets to the chest and a hand in his.

Grantaire died thinking he'd hated him.

Grantaire! That was his name! Michel hurtled out of bed to write everything down as fast as possible. His roommate - a waif of a thing who could bend you in half he remembered now and before as Jehan Prouvaire - rolled out of bed and joined him.

"What did you remember now?" they asked, yawning.

He scowled. "Grantaire."

"Don't be mad at him."

"I'm not." That was true. "I'm mad at me."

"Michel-"

"Enjolras," he corrected them. "Call me Enjolras. When I find him, he has to know."

He was grateful Jehan didn't ask him what Grantaire had to know.

It was barely a month after that, he was knocked over on the way to his last class before the break.

"Hey!" Courfeyrac snapped, then much more brightly. "Hey!"

Enjolras looked up to see who it was only to gape in awe. Grantaire had always been attractive, but at times, you had to squint. Now, though, his nose was straight and unbroken, his long, curly hair was shining and tied back neatly, his dark skin was rich and healthy instead of sunken and bleached, and his green eyes sparkled behind thick glasses, so they no longer were permanently narrowed.

Courfeyrac laughed. "What happened to you?" he asked in that old dialect.

Grantaire grinned and picked at the corners of his books. "Therapy, antidepressants, clean water, the works."

"And not a bottle in sight!" Fey cheered.

Grantaire winced at that. "Five years sober now."

"You started when you were eighteen?"

"No, I ended when I was eighteen. I'd like to not talk about it. How have you been?"

"Great!" Finally, Courfeyrac gestured to Enjolras. "I've had him and Combeferre - who is my soulmate, by the way - since we were young, so it hasn't been as bad as for, say, Feuilly."

Grantaire swallowed and swore. "Fuck, Apollo, fuck, it's really you, fuck, fuck, fuck, why did this have to happen today, fuck!" He ran off.

Courfeyrac raised an eyebrow. "Well, that was rude. He didn't even let you say anything."

Enjolras shrugged and started walking.

"You're being awfully quiet for someone who just met their soulmate."

"He thinks I hate him," Enjolras said quietly. "I don't. But I don't blame him for running away."

"You should go after him-"

"No!" Enjolras shook his head. "No, I'd probably just make things worse."

Courfeyrac shrugged. "I'm inviting him to the party next week."

There was no room for discussion.

Enjolras nodded in agreement.

The next Tuesday, they all gathered in Ferre and Fey's home, for what had affectionately been known as The Sleepover ever since the core three were nineteen. It was Fey's fault.

This year, though, everyone would be there, all their friends. They'd all huddle around Jehan as they gasped and clawed at their forehead, around Éponine as she went into a daze, holding her stomach, and around little Gavroche as he started to tire. Then they'd wrap themselves in blankets and cling to each other as they fell, one by one. Enjolras always was last, and it felt like leading his friends to their deaths all over again.

He was not fond of it in the least, but he knew it provided comfort for the others.

Comfort, that was the key word of the night. He planned to avoid making Grantaire uncomfortable.

"You mean you plan to avoid Grantaire," Ferre pointed out.

Enjolras scowled and stalked away.

Guests filed in, one by one. Not really guests, more like family, but if Fey was picky about his parties, he was anal about The Sleepover.

Everything went according to plan, everything like it had for the last seven Junes, and Enjolras managed to avoid Grantaire. To avoid touching him, talking to him, being in his general vicinity. Grantaire had run away from him. Grantaire - who he'd loved for two hundred years, give or take a few decades of being dead - had run away. He swallowed back bile, blinked back tears, then reached for a bottle of cheap beer.

The next morning, they waited, huddled together. Combeferre always started first, weeping as he was good as impaled again, the memory of his death etched into this new body as if it were stone. Then the others, one or a few at a time, until only Enjolras and Grantaire remained, everyone else still as stone until after this was done.

The terror crept up his throat, and he turned to see Grantaire feeling much the same, but trying to hide it.

He took a deep breath, tried and failed to convince himself Grantaire still loved him, then gave up and held out his hand, risks be damned. "Permets-tu?"

Grantaire gaped, fingertips digging into the crook of his elbow. He didn't take the hand.

Enjolras felt his face fall, was sure the sting of rejection was clear for all the world to see.

Then Grantaire kissed him.

And they died in each other's arms, again, just for a second.

There was a moment of silence, when they all woke up again, a moment of vulnerability with an unspoken agreement that they would not look at each other. Instead, once they were ready, they moved to the kitchen to wait for everyone else.

Enjolras stayed in the living room, staring into Grantaire's green eyes, stroking the hand on his face. "Why did you run away," he whispered, "if you still love me, too?"

"Finals," Grantaire murmured. "Still?" he asked, giving a lopsided grin.

Enjolras kissed him - because he could now. "I loved you, then, too. I just wanted to make a better world for us, first."

Grantaire chuckled under his breath and kissed Enjolras' palm. "If I had known that, I can't promise I would've changed."

Enjolras scooted minutely forward. "Can I tell you a secret?"

Grantaire nodded.

"I didn't want you to change, I just wanted proof that your feelings for me meant as much to you as mine for you did to me, and I went about it in all the wrong ways. Can you forgive me?"

Grantaire pulled him close. "I forgave you a long time ago. I would still be drinking if I hadn't," he teased.

Enjolras sighed. "Be serious."

Grantaire kissed him on the nose. "I am wild."


End file.
